It may be so, Bushbaby, but that isn't the message I took from Declan's blog.
The Sitcom Mission 2011 Page 43
Clearly I've got nothing better to do until the list is announced on Monday either...
With regards to the current topical debate I think it depends on what you mean by topical. You'd be unwise to set a sitcom around events that would be forgotten or seem irrelevant in a year or so. But many sitcoms are contemporary, set around the feel of the time.
Rev - moved on from the tea & weak handshake attitude to vicars to a more contemporary way of looking at central London churches. No money, no people, church school shoppers etc.
Inbetweeners - A rich kid has to go to a state school i.e. middle class moves down rather than working class moves up as had gone before
One Foot in the Grave - Aging society and there are a lot more retired people about with time on their hands
These are settings that would probably have seemed alien 40 years ago, much as the mother-in-law living with you seems out of place to us today. In fact you could even argue that many of the WW2 sitcoms (Dad's Army, It ain't half hot mum, 'Allo 'Allo) wouldn't be commissioned today as that's a lot less relevant to us that it was to people who grew up during the 1940s.
So I guess it's the balance between making it contemporary without making it so of the moment it'll be dated before it's broadcast.
I suppose the very reason that there are currently two big competitions asking for sitcoms/comedy says it all really. Yes, comedy is subjective, but I almost despaired when 'Miranda' picked up three gongs at the Brit Comedy Awards. Declan and Simon are hoping for some gems, let's hope one, two or more of us have managed to create exactly that (or at least potentially!)...
Quote: sean knight @ March 10 2011, 9:32 AM GMTIt can't be argued that any good material will stand the test of time. Dickens, Shakespeare, Mills and Boon.......
You forgot Sven Hassel....
StephenM's put it better in one post than I have managed to in several.
Quote: Badge @ March 10 2011, 11:33 AM GMTStephenM's put it better in one post than I have managed to in several.
Yes his was a first class post.
Back before Sitcom Mission and Laughing Stock deadlines were closed, I searched twitter a few times regarding both, and found a lot of writers to be a similar age to myself (I'm nearly 27, and found a lot of people in their mid-20s tweeting about it).
I wonder if that's a factor in both competitions receiving a lot of stuff about the recession and other national/global situations like that. At this age, when it coems to Sitcom, most of us write about current things like that.
The other biggie is stuff that has happened to people gets adapted for sitcom In my case, its more of a combo of things that happened to a few friends and myself, with added sitcom effect.
When there's a competition there's a total landslide of these things. I don't blame Simon and Declan for flinging these things aside. Even if it's good (mine wasn't!), the world of sitcom is full of them.
Jeremy Clarkson has been mentioned in 17 scripts so far.
And I've still got about 150 to go.
Thought I'd mention it.
Quote: Feeoree @ March 10 2011, 11:48 AM GMTBack before Sitcom Mission and Laughing Stock deadlines were closed, I searched twitter a few times regarding both, and found a lot of writers to be a similar age to myself (I'm nearly 27, and found a lot of people in their mid-20s tweeting about it).
I wonder if that's a factor in both competitions receiving a lot of stuff about the recession and other national/global situations like that. At this age, when it coems to Sitcom, most of us write about current things like that.
The other biggie is stuff that has happened to people gets adapted for sitcom In my case, its more of a combo of things that happened to a few friends and myself, with added sitcom effect.
When there's a competition there's a total landslide of these things. I don't blame Simon and Declan for flinging these things aside. Even if it's good (mine wasn't!), the world of sitcom is full of them.
See I'm the opposite to this. I started writing stuff that I knew (a sitcom about bored squaddies) found that it wasn't really working and wrote a family based sitcom for Laughing Stock with some surreal elements for one of the family members and a period detective comedy for Sitcom Mission. Neither of which is particularly relevant to me as the family is nothing like mine and I wasn't around in Victorian times and knew almost nothing about Sherlock Holmes when I came up with the idea (the lead character is a distant, name dropping cousin of Arthur Conan Doyle).
In short I found it easier to come up with stuff on the fly than write what I knew as the latter came across as pretty unaccessible to anyone that I showed it to.
Quote: simon wright @ March 10 2011, 12:01 PM GMTJeremy Clarkson has been mentioned in 17 scripts so far.
And I've still got about 150 to go.
Thought I'd mention it.
Any of them in wheelchairs ?
Jeremy Clarkson, in a wheelchair during the recession.
Staying at home, ironing. Wife the breadwinner. James May his Wacky neighbour. Richard Hammond the letdown of a son.
Actually, this could be pretty funny.
There will be more suspense than a Hitchcock film Monday!
Quote: Feeoree @ March 10 2011, 12:53 PM GMTJeremy Clarkson, in a wheelchair during the recession.
Staying at home, ironing. Wife the breadwinner. James May his Wacky neighbour. Richard Hammond the letdown of a son.
Actually, this could be pretty funny.
Forced to drive a Diesel Corsa and work in an office regulating health and safety issues.
And Richard Littlejohn working in the next booth as a call handler for compensation claims from ethnic minorities.
Jeremy Kyle working in a job centre having to make manual benefit payments into the bank accounts of the professionaly jobless.
Welcome, to Right Wing Hell!
Quote: Marc P @ March 10 2011, 11:46 AM GMTYes his was a first class post.
*Blushes*
At least something I've written for sitcommission has had nice things said about it.
Quote: sean knight @ March 10 2011, 1:03 PM GMTAnd Richard Littlejohn working in the next booth as a call handler for compensation claims from ethnic minorities.
Haha, this has to happen in some sort of insane reality show.
CALL CENTRE HOUSE.
He'd be evicted on the first night.